Few people writing today could successfully combine an intimate knowledge of Chicago with a poet’s eye, and capture what it’s really like to live in this remarkable city. Embracing a striking variety of human experience—a chance encounter with a veteran on Belmont Avenue, the grimy majesty of the downtown El tracks, domestic violence in a North Side brownstone, the wide-eyed wonder of new arrivals at O’Hare, and much more—these new and selected poems and stories by Reginald Gibbons celebrate the heady mix of elation and despair that is city life. With Slow Trains Overhead, he has rendered a living portrait of Chicago as luminously detailed and powerful as those of Nelson Algren and Carl Sandburg.
Gibbons takes the reader from museums and neighborhood life to tense proceedings in Juvenile Court, from comically noir-tinged scenes at a store on Clark Street to midnight immigrants at a gas station on Western Avenue, and from a child's piggybank to nature in urban spaces. For Gibbons, the city’s people, places, and historical reverberations are a compelling human array of the everyday and the extraordinary, of poverty and beauty, of the experience of being one among many. Penned by one of its most prominent writers, Slow Trains Overhead evokes and commemorates human life in a great city.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Reginald Gibbons is a poet, fiction writer, translator, and essayist. At Northwestern University, he is professor of English and classics, director of the Center for the Writing Arts, and codirector of the MA/MFA Program in Creative Writing. His most recent poetry collection, Creatures of a Day, was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award.
“This is some of the most beautiful writing I've encountered in a long time. With Reginald Gibbons as our guide, we find ourselves in the nooks and crannies of Chicago, in garages, on street corners, in apartment buildings, and in the city’s neglected institutions like juvenile court. In this stunning collection of prose and poetry, Gibbons captures intimate and poignant stories that have as their backdrop this large, anonymous metropolis. Anyone who has an investment in the urban experience will find themselves drawn to Slow Trains Overhead.”
(Alex Kotlowitz, author of Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago 2009-10-05)“The poems and stories in Reginald Gibbons’s Slow Trains Overhead are a constantly surprising tour through the loveliness and desperation of Chicago. By their attentive listening, they pay homage to the city’s uncountable souls wherever they are to be found—on the map, on the street, at home, in the solitary mind’s eye. This is a necessary, enlivening book by a keen observer with an open spirit who makes impassioned music out of the most ordinary encounters, without cynicism or sentimentality.”
(Rosellen Brown 2009-10-12)“Slow Trains Overhead is a book of incessant crossings and intersections. Reginald Gibbons’s formidable trains resist expedient arrivals as much as they insist on fresh departures—from the present into ‘history,’ our everyday into ‘a different life,’ the elevated tracks and blind alleys of Chicago into the world. These are poems—and prose—that I’m convinced Nelson Algren and James T. Farrell would have loved—and James Joyce, Baudelaire, and Chekhov, too.”
(Robert Polito, author of Hollywood & God 2010-02-01)"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 3.00
Within U.S.A.
Shipping:
US$ 5.00
Within U.S.A.
Seller: Open Books, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Open Books is a nonprofit social venture that provides literacy experiences for thousands of readers each year through inspiring programs and creative capitalization of books. Seller Inventory # mon0000644641
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00046009318
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.42. Seller Inventory # G0226290581I4N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # 4727481-6
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: HPB-Ruby, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!. Seller Inventory # S_402597190
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Powell's Bookstores Chicago, ABAA, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Used - Very Good. 2010. Hardcover. Very Good. Seller Inventory # Z0251248
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: HPB Inc., Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!. Seller Inventory # S_411211951
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: GoldenDragon, Houston, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: very good. Very Good Copy. Fast Shipment. Seller Inventory # SilverDragon0226290581
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Alkahest Books, Deerfield, IL, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. first edition, first printing. Octavo, black cloth covers, 110 pages. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Book and dust jacket are in Fine condition. 040414C or CRBC. Seller Inventory # 000016053
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Windy City Books, Batavia, IL, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. Signed by author. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 001428
Quantity: 1 available